


Follow me back, with the sun in your eyes.

by yourmind_ilove



Category: The White Queen (TV)
Genre: Dig and you'll find fluff, F/M, Grief, Loss, Love, Starts of Illness, reconnecting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 23:10:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/932183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourmind_ilove/pseuds/yourmind_ilove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s distance and there’s silence, your words have never left me. They’re the prayer that I say every day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Follow me back, with the sun in your eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Credit to Snow Patrol, and their song New York, for the summary and Keane's Bedshaped song for the title. Here goes, the end is nigh (as I've yet to watch the last episode of TWQ and am dreading it...). I hope this does justice to a tragic and abused couple for I love each of them very much, as tragic as the pair is. To have gone through so much suffering so young in their lives and be treat to even more heartbreaking events in the last years if the short lives... Well it's unimaginable! As this is my first fanfiction, and first published story that's not poetry, forgive any mistakes or if it's complete poop. I hope you enjoy it anyway! Thank you very much :)

There was barely any light in the stone room. Not even the moonlight streaming through the paned window could alleviate much of the darkness. There was certainly no light coming from the woman in the plush chair, her expression had never been darker. Despite the chill of winter hanging heavy in the air, she wore only her night gown and sat before a dead fire. All this Richard took in with a shudder as he entered the room, it looked so chilling and desolate he almost felt the need to turn tail and run far from a room where his problems lay dormant. But her heavy, quick breaths made him linger on the threshold, linger in concern of why her breaths were so laboured.   
"Anne?" Such a timid voice for the king to use, on anyone but more so his wife.  
He came forward with the half gone candle lighting his way; as a flickering guide it showed to him that Anne had not even glanced in his direction despite his approach. It made him stop a few feet from her, beside the other chair facing the hearth. It was not her ignorance of him that made him falter but more just seeing her clearly for the first time in... weeks? Had it really been so long since his death? The raw, irrevocable agony of losing their child felt as fresh as if it had pierced him just an hour ago. But looking upon Anne now, it brought a whole other ache to infect his body.   
Her expression was so broken, as if he could fit his fingers amongst the jagged ridges but find that the very something that had made up who his wife was, had fled with their son. Left behind was something so unstable and mournful for what had left it that he could barely look upon her without his throat closing in against the tide of anguish raining down through his body.   
"Why are you not in bed?" He asked because he had no idea what else to say. There was too much between them now and he helplessly acknowledged that he had no idea as to bridge his way to her.  
Still looking into the shadows of the hearth, she spoke lowly, "Because it is cold and empty." To make her bitter point clear, she slowly looked up towards him.   
He was well aware of what she was hinting at; while this was the Queen's chambers, it was more intimately titled their chambers but as of late, there had only been one coming to this room. However, she had read his absence wrongly, for it was not just her who suffered most acutely at the loss of the child they had made together, it was not just her who could not find the will to sleep.   
Heaving a sigh, "You were not at dinner, Anne. The entire court noticed-"  
She scoffed, and while it would normally accompany a bitter expression, it seemed so pitiable on her broken, sallow face. As if keeping up appearances, the thing she'd try so hard to do as Queen in commemoration for her father no doubt, was no longer something she had the energy to care for.  
"As if I care what they think, Richard." It was a whisper, a whisper that slithered in the looming shadows of the room. So, she did not care to be Queen no more? Was there a thing in her life she did still care for? His mind pleaded for there to be such a thing, for him to be such a thing. For while he did not deserve it, it would be too much to lose them both.  
The comment made him hesitate for a few moments before he carried on but with a tighter grip upon the arm of the chair.  
"But I care that you're not eating. And I care that your maids confide to me that you ordered them not to wake you in the mornings, that you turn them away from washing you."   
It was like playing a game of hide and seek, trying to maintain contact with her damn eyes. But the passion and anguish in his voice, the undercurrent of anger that made his voice noticeably louder than the dismissive tones that had become common in their conversations, had her finally keep that focus on him.  
And that's what made its way through to her, when they finally both noticed the other's pain. It's with her wide eyes boring into his below the furrowed brow, that he slowly went to kneel at her feet, his hands hovering warily over hers.  
"It's just hard." With that he no longer was wary about clasping their hands together for she had broken off with a choked breath. He just nodded at her, he knew better than anyone. What worried him slightly was the heat of her skin, the sticky sweat that slid between their fingers. It was such a cold night and here she was, underdressed and giving off as much heat as the candle's flame upon the little table.   
"Sleep only brings images of him, Edward, our boy. Those days together at Middlesham with you teaching him to play chess... So much I see of him, Richard. So much that I fool myself -" her words then began to burst from her with tears and gasps as a person would who had found the surface after drowning. It was all he could do but to look at her through his fringe, their hands against his lips, with eyes unbearable in their vulnerability. Their pain a mirror of one another.  
It was many moments before he could bring himself to speak, to try to give reason to his irrational behaviour. "I didn't want have to face that." The hoarse crackle of his voice brought her attention away from trying to regain some control over her tears by looking at their still entwined hands. Even after all these years, she had never seen this expression upon his face. Not even after the deaths of his brothers, there had undeniably been grief of which she had only been privy to, but this was something else entirely. She wondered if he felt as much helpless empathy and despair looking upon her own face. She hummed for him to carry on talking for this silence, something she had become very accustomed to lately, was becoming unbearable.  
Moments passed, slow and heavy like the rain falling from the heavens, but in such contrast to the fast beating of the Queen's heart. It was as if her body had fallen under the same chaos as her mind and soul but it would never ebb, not like the rain. In this waiting, Richard had stood from his wife and wandered to the window where Anne could no longer see his internal struggle. He loved her so, knew her better than the worn lines on his palm, but he could still not have himself willingly face her when he was so out of control.  
"I cannot bear the idea of what I would see in sleep nor what I would wake to find." He said evenly, watching the tears on the window panes rather than the tears on his wife's face. "Nor could I carry on laying by your side while you mumbled his name in sleep." Shaking his head, trying to dislodge the ache from his throat. This would never be easy to say, whether he was looking upon someone else or not for it would never begin to stop hurting and what with the worries the physicians were confiding to him, it would only get worse. He had refused to even consider it but those worries were becoming his own. Oh God, this was too much. Too soon. If ever.   
"So, I have made myself absent from our bed, from you." He turned slightly from the window so they could meet eyes and see the earnest truth there. "And I am so sorry for that, Anne, truly. So selfish, but understand that I just could not bring myself to see that you felt the same pain as I. You re my wife and I had no way to help you from this. I would only make it worse."  
So lucky and unlucky that they both were, to be blessed with such love in their marriage yet be made to suffer from miscarriages, the deaths of so many relatives, malignant rumours, the death of their son. Were they made to suffer for having a happiness that young girls would dream of but never be blessed with? With that bittersweet thought in her mind, Anne shakily rose from the chair that had bore her heat and imprint for several hours now, and slowly made her way over to Richard still by the window. It was with her pressing her forehead gently to his bad shoulder that the watery hiccups and gasps finally were let go of and they rushed into one another's embrace. As looking upon a jigsaw puzzle missing the final piece, it was that nagging wrongness that had become too present amongst them lately that they distantly avoided one another's presence, touch. A couple whose embrace was as likely seen as leaves upon a tree, this was the comfort they both needed to quell the uncomfortable mix of emptiness and aching sadness. There they stayed for as long as needed to calm their cries with the now steady, even breaths of the other.  
It was with this calming embrace that Richard's thoughts returned to worry over his Queen's welfare. He had been wrong in dismissing the concerns of their physicians, hoping to avoid considering what Anne being ill would lead to, but with so many obvious anomalies in her composure and welfare, he would put his all into ensuring she return to health and never leave it. Gingerly running his fingers through her hair, oily and imbedded with tangles, he declared that he would get a bath ready so as to bathe her and clean her of the sweat clinging to her skin.  
"Richard, don't be ridiculous, it's late. This can all be rectified in the morning." It brought the smallest of smiles to his lips at seeing her blush in embarrassment at her appearance. The first smile in awhile, even if it was almost imperceptible, and while she always stood above any other woman in his eyes, this would be a small step towards a semblance of normality. They were still the King and Queen after all and he dreaded the callous words of the unsympathetic nobility towards his wife at court.   
"It is but ten, my Anne, so not that late. I am King, it will be no issue to summon hot water for a bath." The smile began to fade with his next words, "more so, I am aware of there being something wrong with your health and I must see to it that you are rested. I must Anne, so please, for tonight, allow me to be 'ridiculous'". Anne did not know whether to laugh or frown that she was to be another weight pushing upon the crown on his head and so she nodded her consent. It was a commendable feat that he rarely breaks down as he did earlier; any other would be a mere puddle of mess being splashed about by the feet of others.

Almost an hour later, Anne was being treated to Richard brushing her wet hair slowly down her back, the little prickles working to calm her. However, she could not let herself relax completely without voicing the nagging doubt swimming around her mind. The court was all talking of it, in her more aware moments she'd heard through walls and behind doors of the closeness between her husband and another. Not just any other but his niece! It was preposterous, a man of such loyalty and integrity but yet... He had been absent from her bed, she had been as distant as the dimming stars in the sky, and just compare her greasy, sagging looks to that of the vibrant former princess...  
"She's a sweet girl."   
It burst from her before she could even stop her mouth moving or process the words at all. What a blunder. The slight jerk in Richard's hand made her not regret her remark, though. How she hoped for a misunderstanding to not stop this quaking in her hands, the sickness filling her stomach to perturbing limits.   
"Who, Anne?" Voice still so even.  
"Elizabeth."  
"And I was still thinking you detested Elizabeth Woodville." Going for teasing, his voice almost teasing even!  
She slapped his hand away from brushing her hair still, despite the stop and start of it all, and turned to face him on their bed in just their bedclothes.  
"Don't pretend, you know which Elizabeth I speak of." Her voice had turned as bitter as it had when he'd first entered the room. All that progress for nothing. "I thought the court were just being malicious toward you for your reign is not yet accepted but trying to deflect the conversation, Richard? Is it the true, my loyal husband? Because if so, leave-"  
Grabbing her wrist,"Anne!" It was just to stop her before her own thoughts led to conclusions that would wrongfully damn them both. "Stop this, I would never act so shamefully, never even think that way. It has been just us for half of our lives and yet you believe these sly people over me?"  
Even now he could cause her to feel shame with those clear, focused eyes when it was he she thought would be the one wanting to avert their eyes.  
"I cannot help my doubt. I always thought our family was my two certainties but I have lost one and now the court whispers of me losing my second. Can you blame me for not thinking straight? Especially when you jerk at just the mention of this girl." Those watery eyes, that shake of the head. He had never thought the gossiping would get to her, the ring on each of their fingers had always been enough of a security, but broken as they were, be ad no right to judge her.  
"I- I am close to Elizabeth, yes." He talked on after Anne made a desperate noise, getting it out before she concluded prematurely. "What with my failure to keep safe my brother's sons... I felt ashamed. In need of redemption so, I looked to absolve it through his eldest. She is sweet, yes. But you are my dear, and she my niece. Nothing will alter those facts." Looking back to her, he placed his fingers carefully to her jaw. "Please believe me and only me for you are my love. Understood, Anne?" Leaning close to her face so as to convey how utterly true his words was, he could feel her slow and subtle nod. The flare of heat upon her cheeks, he could instead see but did not care for it for he had clasped her to him and dragged them to lay down entangled in bed. That was the last doubt they had over the other for in the last remaining months, Richard clasped Anne to him like a lifeline. One that slowly and achingly deflated and sank them both to the shores of an unforgiving and smothering ocean. But for now, they were a two cords so twisted around one another that to find the beginning and end to unravel them was almost impossible.

**Author's Note:**

> I rushed through the last third of this and I hope it doesn't show but if it does, understand that I wanted to finish this before I watched the last episode and to comfort those who had of the love of Richard and Anne. While sources are scarce on their marriage lives, historians have attributed that they had a happy, loving marriage with Richard taking no mistress during their marriage, weeping at Anne's funeral and the fact they grew up together. While I make it no secret that I'm a romantic, I believe their love was true and something admirable and rare in such times. Knowing how chaotic and traumatic their lives began in and ended with, it is sweet thinking that these two must have clung to each in reassurance to get them through the craziness of a disapproving and malicious court and such extensive personal loss. Admirable people and I will champion them through all of the false rumours that were given to their reign in order to discount it for the new Tudor dynasty. It saddens me to know it is still heavily present today still, though getting much better. Anyway, thanks again.


End file.
